Beverages such as wine and wine products have been stored in various containers over the centuries, including timber, animal skins, pottery and leather. The use of glass bottles has evolved more recently as the preferred storage method, however glass has a number of drawbacks as a packaging medium for beverages, including its weight, durability and less than optimum recycling ability. The disadvantages of glass packaging have been further enhanced due to increasing demand of retailers from suppliers to commit to minimising the carbon footprint (Green miles and Water miles coefficients) associated with the supply of goods.
Alternative packaging forms for wine and other beverages such as metal cans, polyethylenetetraphthate (PET) bottles and Tetra Pak cartons have increased in popularity in the past decade. These offer advantages of lower weight, however for some wine their success has been limited and so far none of these has been successfully used as packaging medium for the storage of wine. This lack of success is primarily due to the relatively aggressive nature of wine, non-specific filling practices and non-specific lacquer specifications which are the cause of adverse wine integrity effects as a result of the interaction between the product and container.
The development of a robust packaging system for delicate products such as wine and wine based products is considered desirable so as to ensure product integrity, longevity and to meet consumer demands for sustainable packaging and the requirements of maintaining the wines integrity (key notes of sight, nose and taste) under various global storage and transport conditions.
Over the past decade the global storage and transport of products such as wine has needed to become more environmentally sustainable and has become a key commercial consideration driven by consumer demand for environmentally friendly products and packaging which limit their impact on the environment and do not allow the integrity of the wine inside the container to suffer deterioration during its storage and transport.
Wine conveyed in more traditional wine containers suffer detrimental impacts to the wines integral notes due to these negative logistics, weather, storage etc. conditions without the assistance of refrigeration.
Products such as wine that are extremely and continuously interactive with their environment require their internal chemical balance to be maintained in order for the products integrity to be delivered intact to the consumer as the winemaker had intended. With the global markets opening winemakers wish to deliver their products to the consumer globally the way they had made the wine. This is extremely difficult in a global market with its varying weather conditions, temperature fluctuations, quality and ability of logistics systems to maintain the wines' integrity until it reaches the consumer.
In addition, the need for an integrated wine packaging system and a product that delivers an exact equilibrium for global transport allowing the delivery of a wine that maintains its integral balance and profile from the winemaker to the consumer no matter where that consumer is located with a stable shelf (up to and well over 12 months) has been a long felt commercial requirement but is also environmentally friendly to minimise its overall carbon footprint.
As the world market demand for wine increases, there is a need to transport wine that maintains its integrity and safety globally with the additional use of a more environmentally sustainable beverage packaging. The need for the development of an integrated wine and beverage packaging system with a closed loop fully recyclable product capability of carrying a diverse product range globally through a variety of storage and transport conditions has emerged.
To meet the expectations of an increasingly environmentally aware consumer coupled with the desire for product integrity, aluminium containers without the risk of can taint are required in order for the consumer to confidently transition to this form of environmentally friendly packaging for a high value product such as wine over other less environmentally friendly packaging currently available.
Consumer assurance is reliant on factors such as the non ‘tinny’ taste (can taint) of products packaged in aluminium containers, shelf life stability and product integrity which need to be maintained by products packaged in aluminium containers.
Traditionally can manufacturers use lacquers to coat the inside of aluminium cans to form a barrier between the product and can body prior to being filled. These traditional lacquers are applied to the inside of a beverage can for the purpose of holding a beverage in aluminium container for a short period of between 3-6 months.
The current general process used by beverage can/container manufacturers to construct and apply a lacquer does not address the issue of wine and wine products shelf life stability and product integrity. Many manufacturers of beverage cans or other beverage containers are faced with product integrity deterioration, some of which include flavour profile degradation, loss of freshness, changes to the taste, aroma and colour of the products and can coating failures leading to pin holing and spoilage. Finally internal product collapse may occur, further damaging the reputation of the aluminium container as a premium beverage container and environmental alternative.
It is generally recognised in the industry that wine and wine products are known to suffer product breakdown—with loss of product integrity, over a short period of time (6 months) when filled in cans/can bottles etc. using current regular lacquers. Beverage can manufacturers own internal guidelines recommend only 6 months as a stable shelf life and after that it is guess work based on the individual product by product time test evaluation.
Aluminium beverage container manufacturers receive significant consumer complaints that canned beverages taste “tinny”, “oxidised” or “off”, “lacking in flavour” or “dull tasting”. This is because the product itself has suffered loss of integrity via the interaction of the product with the coating and aluminium container through the breakdown of the coating or even to some extent the lacquer. This leads to the consumer perception that products produced in aluminium containers are inferior, particularly for high value products such as wine when the consumer compares the same wine that is in glass packaging.
The perceived taste difference causes a negative view of the aluminium containers potential to deliver wine and wine based products with integrity and consistent quality. This has a knock on effect as glass is not as recyclable as aluminium and therefore has a greater negative impact on the environment.
In today's competitive market, manufacturers look at ways of reducing costs and staying competitive in the marketplace. Beverage manufactures demand lower priced packaging options from their suppliers, forcing can manufacturers to use the least amount of aluminium and lacquer to deliver a competitive product to their customers.
Since the mid-nineties there has been a significant shift towards the use of thinner gauged aluminium for the manufacture of aluminium cans. Aluminium beverage container manufacturers look at various ways to reduce the cost of aluminium beverage containers and one way of achieving this is to reduce the aluminium gauge of the aluminium rolls used to manufacture the cans.
This move to thinner gauged aluminium reduces overall costs while also decreasing the amount of metal and energy required to produce a can. However, the thinner can presents a number of significant issues to the products they carry which are of great concern to can and beverage manufacturers and the consumer. It is more susceptible to exterior damage and also to lacquer damage during the manufacturing, filling, packing, storage, transport and throughout the entire supply chain process.
Handling of the product may result in damage via dents and depending on the position of these on the can, damage (cracking and fracturing) may also result to the internal can lacquer and subsequently expose the wine to the raw aluminium resulting in product contamination and spoilage. Such damage has the potential of destroying the entire shipment of the products through the leaking aluminium container infecting the surrounding products and causing significant financial losses.
Additionally, given today's global economy, beverage producers are forced to package their products in a number of countries around the world. These products become susceptible to a variety of local conditions at time of manufacture, including water quality and chemical content, weather conditions etc., all of which have significant potential to impact on product integrity, stability and longevity.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an advantageous container for a beverage, in particular for an aggressive and hard to hold beverage such as wine or a wine-based product, which provides an increased shelf life without a negative influence on product integrity or taste.
Furthermore, it is another object of the present invention to provide a process for preparing such a container.